Thank You & See You Again!
It’s hard to believe that my remote internship of 7 weeks with Prospr Consulting Sdn Bhd is finally ending today! I am truly sad that it has finally come to an end when I have had such a great time with my great colleagues and supervisor, even though I was not physically working in the office with them. However, I will be joining them in the main office as I have been offered a full-time job with them at the start next year!
Although this is my first-ever internship, I can truthfully say that doing this internship was the best thing that has happened in my university experience. Even though there were times where I faced some challenges, I was able to learn from them and I believe that this experience has given me the confidence and prepared me to step into the working world. Not only did I learn how to conduct research and analyse data as well as improve my writing skills, I’ve learned so much more about the world of public relations and have a taste of the working life. As cliche as this may seem but I truly believe that everything I’ve learned during my first internship experience will help me throughout my professional career.
Here are a three key tips I’ve gathered over the past 7 weeks:
1. Be friends with your co-interns
As one of two interns in the team, I felt slightly intimidated being surrounded with public relation professionals and working adults. I didn’t know how to talk to my colleagues or the other intern for the first few days. It was harder for me since I could only interact with them virtually. But after a few days, I decided to reach out to the other intern to discuss about one of the projects that we were tasked with and began contacting her regularly. Having someone to talk to and being able to discuss our projects together helped me feel less alone, especially since I was doing it remotely. This was definitely one of the best decisions I made during my internship.
2. Know your limits
As a person that just can’t seem to say no to helping people, I found it so hard rejecting my colleagues whenever they asked for help with their projects even though it would give me extra work to do. There were times where I definitely felt burnt out and exhausted as I kept taking on projects that were not supposed to be mine in the first place. As a result, I felt that I was not able to do my best in the tasks that I was assigned to.
Soon, I learned to put boundaries and say no whenever I felt that I was getting reaching my limit of exhaustion. I also learned to be okay with the fact that I can’t always help everyone. This definitely helped me to be able to focus on my given projects and allowed me to do my very best for them.
3. Seize every opportunity!
There were several projects given and meetings that my boss invited me to join with him that discussed topics that unrelated to what I was studying. Even though I didn’t fully understand the topics, I still tried my best in doing the research and analysing the data for the project my boss gave me. As a result, I learned quite a bit about things that did not relate fully to my major and gained new understanding and knowledge on these topics.
I have learnt so many things about the world of public relations from this internship experience and found it so interesting to see what I have learnt from PR Techniques, Transmedia Storytelling and PR Planning and Evaluations being used in the industry. I believe these units really helped me with my projects throughout my internship like researching and analysing data, writing a press release, creating a media invitation and content creation and equipped me with the skills and knowledge needed to work in the world of public relations. With that being said, I can’t wait to dive back into the industry next year and continue growing as a public relations practitioner!
All the best with your internships!
Tips & Tricks That No One Tells You About Client Management & Writing Press Releases
Recently, my supervisor conducted a training session on the topics of client management and writing via video call with other colleagues from the Malaysian, Singaporean and Indonesian offices. The main purpose of this interactive training session was for the seniors in the PR industry to share their experience and give advice on how to handle difficult clients and their tips for writing a great press release and media pitch with the newcomers.
I’ve decided to share with you all the great advice and tips that I picked up during this session as I believe that they are really helpful and will benefit aspiring PR practitioners in the future.
Several tips and advice that I got from this session are so good that I feel compelled to share them with you all! I believe that these will help us grow as PR practitioners as we get ready to we step into the industry.
Client Management Advice
- Be confident on your knowledge in the PR industry
Being confident helps your client trust you as you show your knowledge in your skills in creating strategies, campaigns, media relations and more.
- Never speak to clients privately/alone
Always speak with clients with another colleague so that there is another person helping you and in case anything goes wrong.
- Use emails so that it is in black and white
Use your company’s email so that whatever agreement or correspondent with your client is officially stated in black and white.
- Always highlight important details
Highlighting the important details will ensure that your client notices these important details before signing on anything.
- Never jump the gun!
If a client messages you late at night with an issue, don’t immediately read it and explain. Take some time to collect your thoughts before replying so that you know exactly what to say.
Writing Tips & Tricks
- Have an exciting headline for both email and content
This will attract attention to your email and content that is sent to a journalist or member of a media publication.
- Give a good narration to garner interest
Giving a good narration in your email about your content will definitely garner interest to the person you’re sending it to.
- Always identify the message or story you want to tell
Identifying the message or story you want to tell will quickly allow the receiver to quickly analyse if it fits the content that they usually publish and will be well received by their target audience.
- Use inverted pyramid style when writing content
Using the inverted pyramid style will allow the content answer the 5Ws and 1H as taught in PR Techniques.
- Have unique selling points in your content
These unique selling points will set you aside from other content that is in the inbox of the journalist or member of a media publication.
Press Release Tips & Tricks
- Know what you want to say or tell the journalist or member of a media publication
This will keep the explanation on the content short and simple.
- Be very specific in the message for the angle and keep that angle focused
Being specific with you angle’s message will help the receiver know exactly what your content is about and quickly analyse your content’s potential.
- Choose simple words
Fancy and big words are unnecessary to get your point across and some people may not understand them.
- Write short sentences
Press releases do not require long winded sentences as essays usually do. Aiming for 500-600 words is more than enough a press release.
- Always use active voice!
This makes your content more fun and engaging and sentences in active voice are less wordy than those that use passive voice. Active voice writing also sounds more capable and direct and nothing inspires confidence in a consumer like a strong statement!
- Keep the paragraphs short
Having not more than 5-6 sentences per paragraph will help keep press releases short and sweet. The main aim is to have 5-6 paragraphs per press release.
- Eliminate fluff words
This will help to keep sentences short and not dilute the message of the press release.
- Don’t be redundant!
This ensures that your message does not sound boring and does not make it look like you are trying to push the message across aggressively.
- Ensure there are no contradictions
Always ensure that your message is aligned with your angle to make sure there are no contradictions.
- Create a structure and put pointers for the main points of each paragraph
Always create a structure or outline for your press releases before you start writing it out to ensure that you are not writing the same things and helps you be objective in your writing.
- Take a break if you have writer’s block
Don’t try pushing yourself if you have writer’s block as your work will not improve. Taking a break will help you clear your head and might help you find inspiration.
- Double check if everything is aligned and not repetitive
Always proofread your press release once you are done and get some feedback from others to ensure that your angle is aligned with your message and that you aren’t being repetitive in your writing.
I hope these helped you or were informative! I know that I would definitely remember these tips and tricks as I step into the PR industry after graduation.
Till next time!
A Glimpse Into The World of PR
Now that I have settled into my role of a remote intern, it’s time to get busy with work. As I’m doing my internship remotely, it is hard to do a lot of public relations related work as I’m not there physically. However, my supervisor was kind enough to give me the opportunity to try my hand at a few public relations tasks.
Here is my in-depth experience which details the challenges I faced and lessons learnt while working on my assigned tasks as a remote intern.
Researching and Analysing Data
One of my main jobs as a remote intern taking on the role of the account executive and assisting the account director/account lead in the creative development workflow. This means helping in the research and analysing data for the upcoming projects and campaigns that will be implemented. As most of us have learnt in PR Planning and Evaluation, it is important to analyse and do research before any projects or campaigns are implemented to ensure that the information at hand is correct. Due to confidentiality requirements, I am unable to share with you the details of these projects but it was very insightful to learn how to the company does their research and the ways that they analyse these datas before doing anything.
Another one of my tasks was to do research on all of the media publications in Malaysia and Singapore, which is where the two offices of Prospr are located. This gave me great insight and understanding to the mass media industry in Malaysia and Singapore. Some great tools I used to analyse the number of circulation, readership, viewership, daily page visitation and their rate cards are:
- Adqrate
- Media Spokes
- Hype Stat
- Similar Web
I believe these sites may be helpful for those doing research for media publications in the future.
Compiling Data and Information
After researching and analysing data comes the compilation of all of these information. I was assigned to compile all of the data and information of media publications, media pitches, press releases, the company’s clientele list and the company’s clientele media coverages into Google Excel sheets and arrange them by industry. This was a very tedious job and took me many days to do. However, this is very important for the company as it would make extracting information more easier for the PR consultants when they need it.
Here are some tips I picked up while compiling all of these data and information are:
- Give yourself a set number of data that you want to complete each day
- Make sure you have access to all the company’s data and information needed
- Double check that all the information you have is correct with the person-in-charge if you are unsure
- Ensure that the list is neat and well-organised according to the company’s need
- Ensure that everyone in the company has access to the lists
Press Release
On the topic of press releases. I was assigned to help write a press release for one of our new clients. Now I have written many practice ones during the PR Techniques unit before but I’ve never actually created one for a real life client! This is one of the tasks I was really looking forward to do as I love writing.
Due to the non-disclosure agreement, I can’t really tell you much details but they are currently launching a new product into the Malaysian market. At first, the angle was focusing more on the new product launch but after the consultant in charge sent it to our client, the client decided that he wanted to change the angle and merge it with the brand’s story as well. This meant that I had to re-write most of the press release, which was quite frustrating. However, I did learn that clients change their minds all the time and that this is something that most public relations consultants are used to.
In terms of my writing, the public relations consultant in charge of this client said that it was a good try and she gave me some pointers in the areas that I needed to improve on. I believe that these pointers helped me create a pretty good first draft for the client. I still have a long way to go in perfecting this but I’ll keep trying till I get it right!
Some key tips I’ve learnt are:
- Create a exciting and engaging headline
- Have a sub-headline to support the headline
- Make sure the first paragraph answers the 5 Ws and 1 H.
- Ensure that information written in the press release is correct
- When sending out the press release to the journalists, send the main press release copy but also copy and paste the content into the email as well for easier reference
- Always refer to the PR plan or the client brief for all information
- Ask or clarify with the client or the consultant in-charge if there’s anything you are unsure of
Media Invitation
With the client’s media invitation, it was quite a challenge for me as I have never created a media invitation before. Thankfully, I had my supervisor walking me through it and teaching me the methods that the company uses to create media invitations. The media invitation was interesting to create as it had to sound friendly but at the same time professional. It took quite a few tries but I finally created the right one for the client.
Here are some important tips to remember when creating a media invitation:
- Make sure your writing is engaging and fun but at the same time professional
- Include a brief summary of the company and the purpose of the event
- Make sure the journalists know there is a deadline to RSVP their spot
- Ensure the logos and images are in the correct format according to your company’s format
- Ensure the details of the event are correct
- Always double check the details with your client before sending the media invitations out
Content Creation
With content creation, this refers to my assigned tasks of creating and designing industry banners that will be used in press releases and media pitches that will be sent out to journalists and designing a townhall deck for my boss.
For the industry banners, my main challenge was finding inspiration and creativity to create unique and fun designs for each banner as I had to create about 3 to 4 different banners for each industry. By the end of this task, I had created a total of 90 banners! One main advice I would give when doing content creation is find some inspiration if you are stuck or running out of ideas. There are many great ideas on Google, Pinterest or WeHeartIt!
With the townhall deck, I ran into several challenges. The first challenge was that my boss did not know what theme or design he wanted. So I had to do a lot of extra work by creating different presentation drafts of themes and designs and then send them over to him to choose what he wanted. This was so that I could know what he wanted exactly in terms of looks and feel for the entire townhall deck. It was really frustrating as he rejected many of my ideas but in the end he did give me a few examples to what he wanted and I finally made a version that he was happy with after a few days of hard work.
My next challenge involved my supervisor. Now, my supervisor was supposed to help me with the designing part but he kept adding things that our boss did not want! As I am supposed to be in charge of designing, I was blamed for most of it, which was really frustrating. But after talking with my supervisor and clarifying with him what design idea and theme that I was going for, he let me carry out my idea and stopped changing the design which finally allowed me to create the townhall deck that my boss envisioned.
My key advice is that communication is very important! Both parties need to communicate what they want exactly from each other and to clear any misunderstandings on each side. Never be afraid to ask for clarification or unsure with what the other person wants as this may help speed up the designing process and save you more time and energy.
Client Meeting & Meeting Minutes
I was privileged enough to be invited by my supervisor and CEO to join a few meetings with one of our new clients via video call. This allowed me to experience and gain insight to what a client meeting is actually like and how it is conducted in the industry. I was tasked to take down meeting minutes, which is a very important job as it serves as a reminder to both parties about what was being discussed during the meeting. It is also as a call-to-action to complete any tasks that was discussed during the meeting before the next meeting with the client. This may be getting certain documents to the client or getting the client to send over their company story, for example.
For the first meeting, it took awhile for me to get used to writing down what was going on quickly as I was asked to join the meeting last minute which meant that I had no context of what was happening. Thankfully, my supervisor briefed me on what was happening shortly after the meeting. By the second and third meeting, I have gotten used to taking down notes quickly and arranging them into their respective categories.
One really good tip is to voice record once the meeting begins on your phone or your laptop! This will really help you to remember anything you missed during the meeting and double check that you have written down all the important details.
And there you have it! My full experience handling some of my main tasks as a remote intern. I hope that reading my experience and tips will help you in any similar tasks you are handling at the moment or in the future. If you do have any more suggestions or tips, please feel free to comment them below!
Till next time!
Remote Internship 101: How to Make The Most Out Of A Remote Internship
For the past week, I’ve been blessed to get my internship placement in this amazing public relations agency called Prospr Consulting Sdn Bhd which is based in Kuala Lumpur. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m currently not able to be in the office physically which means I will be doing my internship remotely.
Personally, I was unsure and nervous on how this internship would play out since it is a very unique situation and it was my company’s first time doing a remote internship. But as I finished my first week, I realised it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
Here are six important lessons that I’ve learnt that has helped me in the first week of my remote internship.
1. Being prepared
Whether in-person or remote, being prepared for your internship is key! I found that taking the extra steps like reading all the relevant documents provided by the company, making sure that all the necessary gadgets are tested and ready for use (my laptop, earphones, internet access, etc) and learning the navigations of the video call site has helped me have a smoother run when I’m being called unexpectedly by my supervisor and learn the work flow of the company. This has helped me keep my work up to their standards and have a smoother internship experience.
2. Recreate an office environment
Working from home makes it easy to get caught in a cycle of working whenever you feel like it. I found that recreating an office environment by following the company’s working hours, dressing up for work and creating an “office space” has really helped to boost my productivity and makes it feel like I’m working in the physical office. I know it all seems silly but trust me, doing this really helps!
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- What I wore on my first day of work
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- My little “office space”
3. Manage your time wisely
One of the benefits of being a remote intern is that you have flexibility, however this also gives you time to procrastinate with your work. Personally, I found that sticking to the company’s working hours, setting goals for myself everyday and using a monthly planner has helped me focus more on my work, keep track of my progress and deliver my tasks on time, sometimes even before the deadline! This will show your supervisor that you are a reliable and hard worker.
4. Don’t be shy
Another lesson I’ve learnt is the importance of communication. Having the right amount of communication can make the difference between a rewarding internship and a not so rewarding one. Going the extra mile to communicate with your supervisor and colleagues through email or calls to ask questions or clarify a task makes a huge difference and will help to improve the quality of you work. Don’t be scared to ask for help when you run into any issues, your supervisor and colleagues are there to help. The best way is to schedule weekly check ins to ensure you are on the right track.
5. Go the extra mile
Remote internships may prevent us having the full immersive internship experience that you usually would have in a physical office, but you can make the most of it by going above and beyond. Asking for my supervisor’s input and feedback on my work, engaging in projects outside of my area of responsibility and sharing suggestions on how to improve my internship program has helped me to improve my internship experience and make the most out of my internship. Be proactive and take the initiative to make the most out of your internship!
6. Always do your best
I know remote internships has its limitations on the work your supervisor can assign you but it should not affect the quality of your work. I always remind myself that all tasks are equally important even if it’s just compiling media publications, reorganising my company’s data on their server and compiling my company’s clientele list.
I hope these six lessons will help you as much as they have helped me! For more tips on remote internships, check out the websites and blogs in the links below:
https://www.hercampus.com/money-career/6-ways-rock-remote-internship
https://symba.io/blog/5-tips-succeed-remote-internship/
https://www.virtualinternships.com/succeed-in-remote-internship/
https://learn.joinhandshake.com/students/how-to-make-the-most-of-a-remote-internship/
Hope this post was helpful and you enjoyed reading it. Do let me know if you have any suggestions on improving the remote internship experience in the comments below!
Till next time!